


Second Time is Coincidence

by pennysparrow



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Hellblazer
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Cigarettes, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Magic, Mild Language, Sassy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27157036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparrow/pseuds/pennysparrow
Summary: Mia is used to deathtraps, empty warehouses, being captured and tied up. The strung up by her wrists from the ceiling is new. Finding herself with John Constantine is not, nor is it something she wants to make a habit of.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Second Time is Coincidence

**Author's Note:**

> A companion and follow up to [Negative Effects of Habits](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26762290) though it can be read as a stand alone. 
> 
> Warnings: Mentions of Mia taking down a human trafficking ring though it's off screen.

“Oh c’mon,” Mia groaned, slumping against the bonds that currently had her suspended from the warehouse ceiling. “Not you again!”

“Not exactly thrilled to see you either, love.” John Constantine grumbled. Mia had to admit that at least she was better off than him. While she was hanging by her wrists, John was hanging by his ankles with his trench coat half falling off and tie hitting him in the face. He rotated, arms pinwheeling to reach the ground where the contents of his coat had emptied out. Spilling chalk, papers, matches, lighter, wallet, dubious looking odds and ends, and cigarettes across the concrete.

“I don’t think you’re going to be able to reach,” Mia said dryly, as there was about ten feet of air between her feet and John’s hands and the ground.

“I just need a smoke,” he ground out between his teeth. His arm flailed and it sent him spinning and swinging again.

Mia frowned. “Can’t you just say ‘Accio cigarette’ or something? I mean, you have magic.” She distinctly remembered the last time they met in an equally damp warehouse. He’d managed to summon her costume from Star then. At least this time she was both already wearing it and still in Star City.

John stopped reaching for the impossible smoke break, letting his arms hang loose. He spun slower now to glare at her. The combination of scruff, gravity, and the fact he was upside down kind of ruined the effect. “Strewth. Do I look like bloody Dumbledore?”

“Hmm, no. But in the right light you could be Gandalf?” Mia flashed her teeth just in time for him to see before continuing his slow rotation.

“Y’know, I was beginning to think you were halfway decent for a headcase that ran around in tights. I now see I was wrong,” he huffed. He seemed a little out of breath too, must be the strain of trying to collect his belongings from ten feet out of reach with the blood rushing to his head. Also, the fact she’d witness him smoke a pack in a day. If he was lying about his soul belonging to hell, there’s no way his lungs didn’t at least look like it.

“And to think, I punched nazis with you. I thought we had a bond.” Mia pouted as he came back around.

“I’m not the long-term type, ta. Did enjoy our time together, love. Don’t get me wrong.” He flashed her a smirk that was almost charming but currently was nothing short of ridiculous.

She laughed, it’s not like there was much else to do and it was getting increasingly harder not to laugh at John. Mia might as well get it out of her system now.

“So, I’d like to say I know how I got here but…” John trailed off as he slowly began to spin the opposite direction.

Mia grinned. “Well Mr. Constantine, today is your lucky day because _I_ know how we got into our current predicament.”

“Must we do the chipper sidekick bit?” he wrinkled his nose as he tried to motion but moving his arm just sent John swinging again. Which made his face go slack and pale.

“You don’t look so good,” Mia pointed out. John was currently slamming a hand over his mouth. “You’re gonna throw up, aren’t you? Oh gross, you’re totally gonna barf.”

John’s face had screwed up in seeming concentration. Both hands were now locked over his mouth as he took slow, steady breaths in through his nose.

“If you hadn’t been so desperate for a cigarette you wouldn’t be in this predicament,” she let a singsong sneak in at the end. It was kinda mean, but Mia was kinda pissed as a baseline today and managing to wriggle her blindfold off to see John Constantine hadn’t improved her mood. She was still trying to get the smell of cheap scotch out of her boots from when he’d spilled a whole bottle on them.

Although John’s hands were valiantly keeping him from having a second look at his lunch, he managed to take one off his face to shove an angry V in Mia’s direction.

“We’re in California, different meaning here,” she drawled, bored.

John corrected the gesture, pulling his index finger down so he was showing Mia her favorite bird. And it wasn’t Robin.

“Look, if you’re gonna hurl just do it _away_ from me. I’d like to walk away from an encounter with you without having to send the suit to the cleaners,” Mia sighed.

While John continued his battles with gravity and motion sickness, ha take that heaven and hell, Mia went to work on getting them out of here. She hadn’t been lying about knowing where they were and how they’d got here. Mia had been trying to break up a human trafficking ring that was using Star as their port. Stupid of them as everyone in the city knew Speedy took the boxing gloves off the arrows when it came to human traffickers. But these idiots had gone one step further and thought they could protect their boats with magic. Obviously, it backfired, hence the retching magician, but not before making a chaotic mess that Mia had been in the middle of cleaning up.

Whatever they’d made a deal with had decided to collect and start cannibalizing the dirtbags. This freaked them out so they offered a trade, the heart of its hunter for their lives. At least, that’s what Mia overheard before a walking brick wall came up behind her and picked her up like a Barbie doll. Blinding and gagging her in the process. Then they’d brought her to this warehouse to hang out for a few hours before the ceremony. Guess they didn’t appreciate her right hook, even while blind and bowless Mia was a threat and for that she was proud. Though it meant they got creative with their deathtrap apparently. The bound hands were pretty standard. The hanging suspended by them were new for her. Roy would say she just needed to spend more time with the Titans to change that.

Mia might not be an acrobat or whatever the creepy Batgirl was, and she certainly wasn’t magic, but she was decently flexible. She was able to bring her legs up to wrap around the chain, silently thanking Ollie for making her strengthen her core not that she’d ever tell him. Connor’s insistence on morning yoga was also coming in handy as she took her weight off her hands and shimmied upwards until there was slack. At this point, it was nothing to slip her wrists out and grab on again before righting herself. Mia grinned over at John, smug.

He’d removed his hands so they once more hung loose above his head. His mouth hung loose too. “I’d be impressed if I weren’t so scared of you,” he admitted softly.

“Just what every girl wants to hear,” Mia smirked. “And to think, you can’t even light a cigarette while upside down.” She punctuated that by swinging out in a wide arc and dropping to the ground, landing hard but managing to keep all her bones intact.

John growled from above her. “Yeah well, extenuating circumstances.”

Mia stared up at him and crossed her arms.

“Well?” he grossed. “Ya gonna get me down or not? I’ll even let ya play William Tell with my feet.”

“I’m sure you’ve got a couple different headaches by now, but that’s no excuse for the fact you can clearly see I have no bow and no arrows.” Mia held out her hands, even doing a slow twirl to prove it.

There was a low grumble from John that probably equated to a long curse but Mia couldn’t make it out. “Look, there should be a piece of paper with an unlocking spell on it. Read it to me and I’ll manage the rest.”

“You don’t have it memorized?” She was genuinely surprised but started sifting through the detritus that had previously been the contents of John Constantine’s coat. “And what about the drop, once you get yourself out of the chains? And I thought I heard you could like teleport.”

“Since when do you ask so many questions?”

Mia raised her eyebrow, giving him a look dry enough to count as its own climate. “Superhero? I’m supposed to be concerned about people’s safety and you falling ten feet onto your head on a concrete floor is about unsafe as it gets.” Mia frowned, thinking for a moment while John winced to himself. “There’s a joke in there somewhere but I’m starting to get tired and kinda want to just be done with this,” she mumbled. “Also,” Mia addressed John again, “after our last meeting I did some research. Black Canary said Oracle said you can teleport. And Oracle is never wrong.”

“Except this time. I can’t teleport and I’d like to know who told her so I can give ‘em a piece of my mind for spreading hurtful rumors.” John was craning his neck so he could keep her in his sight, “I think it’s the one to your left, love.”

Mia picked up the page and stood but did nothing else. She still hadn’t worked out how John was going to get down without cracking his skull open.

“If I had to hazard a guess, she heard it from Batman who got it from Zatanna. Did you know those two are friends? Like, friend friends. Also, Zee told me the last time she came over for girls night with Canary.” Mia shrugged, barely managing to tamp down on her grin at John’s look of horror and fascination.

“Bloody traitor,” he finally settled on as a response. “She’s got it wrong; I can’t teleport but I can con space and time. A little. Using a tesseract. Just not when I have no feeling in my lower extremities.” John tried to wink but the effect was rather lost while he was dangling above her head.

“Right,” Mia nodded. Sure, magic, whatever. Still not a viable option to getting him down.

“Look, love,” John finally sighed, “I’m dying up here. Just read me the spell and trust me.”

She frowned and John softened.

“Remember my luck?”

It had been terrifyingly unexplainable when they went looking for the dicks that stuck them in a warehouse together last time. They found the guys, took them down, and broke up their bigot club in a matter of hours. It was frankly astounding how much of it could only be chalked up to luck and coincidence, something Mia had mentioned when she’d talked to Zatanna.

“Yeah, your magic is something to do with it. Syncopation or synchronicity or something.”

John nodded, which was kinda entertaining to watch. “Exactly. So, read me the spell and the magic will do the rest.”

Mia still had her doubts, but she’d pressed her tracker for backup ages ago so someone was bound to show up, bow blazing, soon if it all went to, well… Hell in a handbasket.

She nodded and began to read the lines written on a slip of paper no bigger than a receipt. They sounded like gibberish, looked like gibberish, but she dutifully paused after each line for John to repeat whatever it was the correct way. After the fifth line she stepped back and John’s chains snapped.

He fell as Mia watched in horror. At the last second, a shout echoed through the warehouse and John stopped. Inches away from the ground.

Turning quickly, Mia saw Zatanna and Black Canary running through the now kicked open warehouse doors. Dinah came right over to Mia, pulling her into a hug, while Zee went to help John up. Mia noticed that he’d grabbed a cigarette and his lighter first.

“Ta for that,” John said around the cigarette where it would now be a permanent fixture of his mouth for the rest of the conversation. Mia was secretly impressed by that. “I told you, Speedy, my luck would hold out.” John grinned and slung an arm around Zee’s shoulders. The magician rolled her eyes.

“There’s still a demon to get rid of,” Zatanna reminded him.

“’M on my smoke break.”

Mia laughed and Dinah shared a look with Zee that Mia knew to mean ‘ _men_.’

“You’re off the clock,” Dinah said, turning back to Mia. “You made things pretty easy for me. And I saw the one guy’s eye, Wildcat would be impressed.”

“Yeah well, I lost my bow and five bucks says most of my quiver is at the bottom of the harbor,” Mia said.

“Nah,” Dinah had been walking them further away from where John and Zatanna had started bickering. Or maybe flirting? It was actually really hard to tell. “GA-2 found both of them in a dumpster off of Fillmore.”

“What was he doing in a dumpster?” Mia asked, genuinely confused.

“Come home and find out,” Dinah teased.

Mia laughed and nodded. “Just, one second.” She turned and walked a few steps back from where they came, towards where John had convinced Zee to help him clean up his stuff. “Constantine!”

He lifted his head at his name, a smile curling across his lips. “Speedy?”

“Let’s not go for the hattrick,” Mia grinned and spun on her heel.

“Cheers, love,” and John's laughter followed her out.

**Author's Note:**

> I just like these two sassing each other. It's fun. They're so mean to each other. 
> 
> Find me on tumblr @[thelittleredheadedmusician](https://thelittleredheadedmusician.tumblr.com/)


End file.
